Friday, October 9, 2015

Student charged with killing one, wounding three at ArizonaUniversity

By David Schwartz

The suspected gunman, Steven Jones, a freshman at the state university in northern Arizona, was taken into custody following the shooting, campus Police Chief Gregory Fowler said. PHOENIX (Reuters) - An 18-year-old student killed a classmate and wounded three other students when he opened fire during a confrontation on the campus of Northern Arizona University early on Friday, in the latest shooting to hit a U.S. school, authorities said.

Jones was charged with first-degree murder and three counts of aggravated assault and was ordered held on $2 million bond at a brief court appearance.

Fowler said Jones pulled the handgun in a confrontation with several students.

The university identified the student who was killed as Colin Brough. Brough was from Annapolis, Maryland, according to an online article by the Capital Gazette newspaper in Annapolis.

The three injured students, identified as Nicholas Prato, KyleZientek and NicholasPiring, suffered multiple gunshot wounds and were being treated at Flagstaff Medical Center, Fowler said. Their conditions were not disclosed.

The shooting occurred just hours before President Barack Obama was scheduled to visit Roseburg, Oregon, to meet privately with families of the nine people killed in a mass shooting at a community college there last week.

Northern Arizona University, with a student body of about 20,000, is located in the mountain city of Flagstaff, about 140 miles north of Phoenix, and about80 miles south of the Grand Canyon.

A university spokeswoman said Friday's incident occurred in a parking lot next to a residence hall for Greek organizations - fraternities and sororities - around 1:20 a.m.

"We don't know the facts yet about what brought them together, or what caused the confrontation," Fowler said.

Delta Chi International Fraternityexecutive directorJustin Sherman said the four victims were members of the fraternity but the alleged gunman was not.

Jones, who did not try to flee, was arrested by university police and was cooperating with authorities, Fowler said. He said guns are not allowed to be carried on campus.

Classes continued on Friday, University President Rita Cheng told a news conference, calling the incident isolated.

Arizona Governor Doug Ducey and U.S. Senator John McCain, both Republicans, extended thoughts and prayers to the victims and their families.

Obama reacted to the killings in Oregon by vowing to step up efforts to curb U.S. gun violence. Gun rights advocates said the Oregon shootings underscored the importance of the right of Americans to bear arms and defend themselves.

Just hours after the Arizona shooting, police said one person was killed and another wounded in a shooting at an apartment complex near the campus of Texas Southern University in Houston, and a suspect had been taken into custody.

(Additional reporting by Suzannah Gonzales in Chicago, Curtis Skinner in San Francisco and Dan Whitcomb in Los Angeles; Editing by Will Dunham, James Dalgleish and Leslie Adler)

FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. -- An overnight confrontation between two groups of students escalated into violence Friday when a freshman at Northern Arizona University opened fire on four fraternity members, killing one and wounding three, authorities said.

University police chief Gregory T. Fowler identified the shooter as 18-year-old Steven Jones and said he used a handgun in the 1:20 a.m. shootings. Jones faces an initial court appearance in Flagstaff Friday afternoon. Police would not say what led up to the fight.

Jones was arrested immediately after the shooting and faces one count of first-degree murder and three of aggravated assault.

The victims were all members of the Delta Chi fraternity, the organization said in a statement. The university identified the student who died as Colin Brough. The victims being treated at Flagstaff Medical Center are Nicholas Prato, Kyle Zientek and Nicholas Piring. The hospital said it couldn't release any information on conditions.

"This is not going to be a normal day at NAU," said school President Rita Cheng. "Our hearts are heavy."

She called it an isolated and unprecedented incident and said classes would go on as scheduled Friday.

The parking lot where the shooting happened is just outside Mountain View Hall Dormitory on the Flagstaff campus, which provides housing for many of the campus' sororities and fraternities. The gate to the dorm's main entrance was closed Friday, and police had the surrounding area taped off.

A NAU sorority reacted to the shooting on Twitter.

Thoughts and prayers out to the brothers of Delta Chi. The Greek community is here for you 💚

Brough was from Castle Rock, Colorado, about30 miles south of downtown Denver. He loved to play lacrosse and wanted to be successful so he could help other people, said his cousin, Ryan Jernegan of Woodbury, New Jersey.

"He was the happiest person that you probably would ever meet," Jernegan said.

The two men were close growing up and reunited during a chance meeting in Las Vegas in June.

"I just keep thinking how lucky I am to be able to spend those days with him," Jernegan said.

Randy Barber, a spokesman for Douglas County Schools, confirmed that Brough graduated from Castle View High School in 2013. He said the school district had activated a crisis team to support students and staff there.

He worked as a cashier at the Puma outlet store in Castle Rock during the summer after graduating high school. Manager Chauncey Musser remembered him as an outgoing employee with a seemingly bottomless supply of energy.

Alex McIntosh, a friend of Zientek, said he worked part time at the High Country Conference Center while attending the school full time.

"He's very calm, very respectful, has a great manner, calm demeanor and you'd never expect him to be caught up in something like this," McIntosh said.

Student Maria Gonzalez told The Associated Press that she at first suspected firecrackers when the shooting happened.

"I was studying for an exam so I looked out the window and see two people running, and that's when I realized they weren't fireworks they were actually gunshots," she said.

Arizona political leaders voiced support for the university and surrounding community, with Gov. Doug Ducey calling the shooting heartbreaking. He said the state stands ready to help in the investigation and response.

Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick, who lives in Flagstaff, expressed confidence that the city "will only grow stronger in difficult moments like these."

Arizona Sen. John McCain called the shooting a "terrible tragedy."

"My thoughts and prayers are with families of the person who was killed and the three others who were wounded in the horrific shooting," McCain said.

The Flagstaff shooting comes on the same day that President Obama visited Roseburg, Oregon, where eight students and a teacher were shot and killed last week at Umpqua Community College. The gunman in the Oregon shooting wounded nine others before turning the gun on himself.

NAU is a four-year public university that has more than 25,000 total undergraduate students at the campus in Flagstaff, a city about two hours north of Phoenix that is surrounded by mountains and ponderosa pines. The city of 70,000 people has a reputation for being a safe place and typically records only one murder per year.

"It's crazy. You don't think this stuff happens. When I think of Flagstaff, I think safety," said freshman Cameron Sands, who had pledged at a fraternity and was supposed to move into Mountain View Hall on Friday.

A freshman at Northern Arizona University shot four students during a dispute outside a residence hall early Friday, killing one of them and injuring the others, authorities said.

The alleged gunman, 18-year-old Steven Jones, was taken into custody by the first police officer who arrived on the scene following the 1:20 a.m. shooting, campus police chief Greg Fowler said. Jones did not resist.

Suspected gunman Steven Jones, a freshman at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff is shown in this booking photo released on October 9, 2015. HANDOUT / Reuters

The dead student was identified by Northern Arizona University as Colin Brough.

The three wounded men — Nicholas Prato, Kyle Zientek and Nicholas Piring — were being treated at Flagstaff Medical Center, the school said. Their conditions were not immediately clear.

The attack began as a confrontation between two groups of students that "turned physical" before Jones pulled a gun and opened fire, Fowler told reporters and students at news conference.

The shooting occurred in a parking lot near the Mountain View Hall dormitory, where most of the school's fraternity members live, school officials said.

Rita Cheng, the university's president, said classes would go on as scheduled on Friday. But "this is not going to be a normal day at NAU," Cheng said. "Our hearts are heavy."

Jones was booked on a count of first-degree murder and three counts of aggravated assault, his attorney, said. He was being held in lieu of a $2 million cash-only bail.

"He killed my best friend, and I watched him die in front of me," student Nico Keintektold NBC station KPNX. "He should think about what he did."

One person was killed and three were wounded in a shooting at Northern Arizona University early Friday.

Fowler said he did not know whether the gunman or the victims were members of fraternities. But the national executive director of the Delta Chi fraternity confirmed that members of his organization were among the victims.

The official, Justin Sherman, said that the shooting "had no ties" to the campus Delta Chi chapter.

Jones was a pledge to a different fraternity, Sigma Chi, that organization said. A statement from the national fraternity said the shooting "was in no way associated with any chapter event," but it has kicked Jones out of the program and suspended the chapter as it investigates the incident.

It is illegal in Arizona to carry a gun on a university campus, but firearms are permitted to be stored in locked cars there, Fowler said.

Some students complained why they hadn't received a campus-wide alerts after the shooting. School officials said an error kept many students from receiving it, but a final all-clear message went through just before 3 a.m.

Rita Cheng, the university's president, said classes would go on as scheduled on Friday. But "this is not going to be a normal day at NAU," Cheng said. "Our hearts are heavy."

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